We should be worried about our planet, not festive songs

CHRISTMAS may be all about timeless traditions, but not for the army of thought police, ever-ready to take offence. In this climate of supersensitivity to all non-PC nuance, the classic tune Baby It’s Cold Outside has been pulled from the airwaves in the US and Canada after listeners complained about its ‘predatory undertones’. Me neither. But then I don’t listen to the lyrics of pop songs, and it’s the first I heard that the song’s about a man coaxing his date to stay despite her protestations of wanting to leave. Another school of thought argues that, far from being a rape anthem, the woman wants to stay but is afraid her reputation might suffer if she flouts the 1940s ban on singles’ sleepovers. Fairytale Of New York has also come under fire because of the ‘you cheap lousy faggot’ line. But faggot was not a homophobic slur back in the unwoke day, it was a general insult. At this rate it’s only a matter of time until Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas gets the chop because of its exhortation to ‘make the yuletide gay’. Removing these songs – or their offending phrases – rewrites pop history and deprives us all of a lesson in how language, mores and culture are constantly changing. Also, is life not too short for banning songs that were written in a less enlightened time, but chime perfectly with their era? David Attenborough might well agree after his lecture to the UN about the collapse of civilisation. He warned that global warming will destroy the planet within a few generations. It’s terrifying stuff, yet the houses around me are blazing with Christmas lights and decorated in plastic tat destined for landfill. Every morning, couriers deliver plastic-wrapped packages from warehouses like Amazon. If we want to toy with the traditions of Christmas, let’s cut down on our mass consumption, not our music.